IMDB-‘Jane Doe’ Case: Amazon and IMDB Move to Dismiss

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IMDB and Amazon claim that actress whose name was revealed hasn't offered adequate evidence of fraud

"Jane Doe" actress Huong "Junie" Hoang's legal battle against IMDB.com and Amazon.com took another twist Wednesday, as Amazon.com and IMDB.com filed a motion to dismiss her complaint on the grounds that she had not established concrete allegations of fraud.

Hoang is seeking $1 million from IMDB and its parent company, Amazon, claiming that IMDB's publication of her true age damaged her acting career because there is less of a call for actresses 40 and over.

The motion to dismiss, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, takes issue with the second amended complaint Hoang filed in April, which attempted to broaden Amazon's culpability in the case by suggesting that Amazon and IMDB might have colluded in mining her data.

Hoang initially claimed that IMDB obtained her age from credit-card information she submitted when she signed up for the IMDB Pro subscription service, though her second amended complaint alludes to the possibility that the information might also have been obtained when she used Amazon.

In the new motion to dismiss, Amazon and IMDB argue that Hoang's fraud claim in the amended complaint "is merely a thinly veiled attempt to keep Amazon.com in this lawsuit" and takes issue with its "vague allegation that Amazon.com 'intended' to share information with IMDB.com."

The motion adds that Hoang "does not allege that she provided credit card or any other personal information to Amazon.com. Nor does Plaintiff allege that any credit card information provided to Amazon.com was the basis for the alleged 'data mining' that Plaintiff contends occurred with respect to her (publicly available) birth date."

Hoang initially filed suit anonymously in October. In December, U.S District Court Judge Marsha J. Pechman said that she must reveal her name in order to proceed with the case, pursuant to a rule that requires a complaint to name all parties. The actress, whose credits include "Hoodrats 2: Hoodrat Warriors" and "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant," re-filed under her real name.